Rosio Pavoris

Not much going on, so time for a mini-rant.

In general, I don’t mind acronyms. Which is to say, I don’t mind acronyms when they make sense.
While IMO and OTOH are perfectly acceptable, as they’re both well-known and tedious to write in their entirety, LOL and ROFL aren’t.

Why? Because nobody says “laughing out loud” and “rolling on the floor” in regular conversation, and it’s equally unlikely people are actually doing those things every time they type them (which, of course, is far too often). And even if they were, that’s not how emoting fucking works. There’s an emote feature in most chats and IM thingamajigs, so use it, and use it properly. If it’s not there, some more creativity is needed, perhaps (*emotes* usually works just fine), but in general, resorting to emotes is overrated anyway. It works occasionally (hell, I do it), but too much is too much.

Next, the acronym “WTF” specifically. Yes, it usually falls in the “makes sense” category, but seriously, some people are using it way too fucking often. We understand you have a question by the question mark at the end of your sentence. There’s no need to emphasize it by using WTF (or, more often, the lowercase wtf) EVERY FUCKING LINE.
I don’t object to swearing, when it’s used in moderation and with reason. Moderation is a very relative word here, but reason, not so much.

Also, when you’re using acronyms, for fuck’s sake, make it clear they’re acronyms by capitalising them. For that matter, capitalise everything that needs to be (that doesn’t mean writing in all caps, and it doesn’t mean sTuDlY-cApS either). And try to grasp the basics of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, while you’re at it. Honest mistakes are okay, intentionally raping a language “coz its to hard to rite evryting rite” means you get raped with pineapples. Or would, if there was any justice in this world.
Most of the people who ignore rules of spelling and grammar are people whose mother tongue is English, I’ve noticed. These people should be shot several times, in addition to said pineapple-rape.

As for 1337-sp34k, honestly, I’ve never run into this as a real issue. In general, nowadays it’s only used ironically, to the point where using it as such has become a cliché.
So yeah, not a sign of linguistic decline so much as just another example of people being unoriginal. Big whoop.

And then there’s the ironic use of words like “lawl” or “roffle”. Perfectly fine with that, as it’s still firmly in the “mocking morons” category, which is all that stands between us and the Abyss.

Final note on smilies (emoticons of any kind): meh. Yes, when used too much and/or in the wrong context, they get annoying, but mostly, they’re an efficient way of conveying the speaker’s (typer’s) intent. Lack of that (or lack of skill at recognising that) was a major problem when I first hit the internets (and for some people, it still is), so all in all, I consider this to be a Good Thing, even when used semi-ironically (^___________________^).

Just wanted to get that said.